media lizards

My first religious adventure started when I was eight years old. Growing up with atheist parents meant that I had a very poor knowledge of religion. God was never the subject of our conversations. He was, however, the subject of our meals.

I noticed a funny paradox. We never went to church, nobody even lit a candle or wore a crucifix, but when Easter and Christmas came, we were more than happy to enjoy a luxurious feast. It seemed like hypocrisy.   How can you celebrate something you don’t believe in? My parents laughed at my questions and shut me up with some really childish answers like “Well, everybody celebrates Christmas.” I was angry.

Angry and confused and keen to find out more.

It wasn’t until high school that I started my new religious pursuits. I chose religious classes and was looking forward to finally solving some riddles. My professor was young, had a degree in theology and was full of knowledge I needed to use. I started with some basic questions. How do we know that God exists? If God created the world, who created the God? Instead of engaging in long religious debates, all I got were text book answers. We know that God exists because the Bible says so. God was born out of nothing; he is the one and only creator.

Every time I asked “But, why…?” the professor got angry. “You don’t question God. You don’t question The Bible.”  Well, I couldn’t agree. Isn’t it the point of religion to make man question himself, his morality, to constantly work on his ethics? Unsatisfied, I did a bit of research on my own.  I read Boccaccio’s Decameron and learnt about the dark sides of Christianity. Reading about the monk who seduced a young woman, corruption in religious circles and satires about the Catholic Church made me pose one more question – how much Christianity does Christianity actually revolve around God?

The evidence of corruption can’t be neglected. There are a few examples of what priests did under the protection of two cardinals, John Krol and Anthony Bevilacqua:  one eleven year old girl was raped by the priest who was supposed to take her for an abortion. Priests also offered money to young boys in exchange for sadomasochistic acts and children were abused in the cruelest of ways.

Then, we have Luther who led a fight against letters of indulgence (people being forgiven their sins in exchange for money). ‘Forgiveness should not be bought’, he believed, but the church said differently. So, is it really about God? If I can have sinful thoughts and act in the most unethical ways and then buy my forgiveness, what is the point of God? It also seemed to me that this religion was too rigid. “We are right. Everybody else is wrong.” Faith should be about believing in something spiritual and should not have those kinds of strict boundaries. 

Isn’t being a good person more important than the way one practices his faith?

So, I didn’t like  Christianity. It didn’t give me enough answers. I wanted to widen  my horizons and then I got lucky. My American aunt, who has worked and lived in Japan for ten years, developed a passion for Buddhism. It was a major family issue; she drove her mother in law crazy by putting little Buddha statues all over the house and doing rituals in front of her. When I told my mother that I would go to one session of Buddhism, she was terrified thinking that I was about to join some kind of strange Satanic cult. I, however, didn’t care and went anyway.

For those who are not familiar with Buddhism, I must explain that it’s a very unique religion. It concentrates on people’s minds since it is believed that everything (good or bad) comes from the mind.  As a beginner, I felt unbelievably stupid sitting on a carpet in the ‘lotus position’ mumbling a mantra I didn’t understand at all. Also, I was a bit disappointed when, after the completed session, I didn’t feel the enlightenment.

They explained to me that for something like that to happen you have to repeat the rituals every day for a long period of time. No quick fixes there then. What I did like was the positive energy and the feeling of relaxation.  I also borrowed a book from my aunt and did a bit of reading. It was worlds away from Christianity.

For example, there can’t be forgiveness for karma (karma is the force that brings suffer or joy after good or actions). Buddhism also brings the concept of reincarnation. It is an ever- changing process influenced by karma. I liked it. It was different. It was new. But was it about God (in this case Buddha)?

To me, Buddhism seems more like a lifestyle than a religion. You choose how to think and what to do to escape the bad karma. It does have sense, but should we make our decisions just because they are good for us, or should we think about the quality of those decisions? It also seems that everything is predetermined. We are born, we get the karma, we live, we die, we live again…  Many people, including the group I practiced with and my aunt, use Buddhism as a life philosophy. It helps them to suppress stress.

Is this the point of religion? To live longer? To have less quarrels?

I was confused. I was missing something. I was missing God. That was the point of my life when I developed interest in sociology and I was again lucky. Our sociology classes were about religion and there was one we really put an emphasis on- Islam.

Islam is a religion we all think we know something about, when we actually know nothing. It is far more complex than “they are not allowed to drink alcohol and eat pork”. The main sacred text is the Quran which consists of a number of religious rules. Muslims believe that God chose the human representatives (prophets) and gave them wisdom and messages for humanity.

This is, again, a bit too vague for me. Aren’t we all supposed to be equal? Why would only some of us be chosen? If we are supposed to follow the messengers, why do we need God? And, also, how can all knowledge of the world, all secrets of this universe fit in one book? I don’t like the concept of predestination and the fact that we basically have no free will.

The main thing that’s bothering me is The Five Pillars. This may sound like a vote for anarchy, but I believe that religion should be rules free. Everyone should practice it in their own way. If I don’t pray five times a day, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m a bad person. It seems to me that this is, again, more about the lifestyle that about  God himself.

So, what’s the right religion? Is there one? I have travelled from Christianity to Buddhism and Islam and didn’t find the answer. Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe we should just behave in a way we find appropriate and try not to harm or hurt others. At the end of the day, I think that religion is in the heart. It’s not about what you are told to do. It’s about what you believe in and what you want to do.

And God? He is a strange “man”. I may never find him, but somehow he’s always present. At least twice a year… for Easter and Christmas. Why do I celebrate it?

“Well, everybody celebrates Christmas”.